Laughing Boy wrote:
] ] The Hanover Community School Corp. plans to use a new
] ] cafeteria cash register system, which uses fingerprints
] ] instead of meal cards to charge students.
]
] Call me crazy... but my highschool had I think a magstripe or
] barcode reader for scanning student photo IDs. It seemed to
] work really well at keeping track of who bought what in the
] cafeteria without conjuring scary Orwellian "Big Brother"
] images. I fail to see why a biometric system is necessary in
] a school cafeteria.

Its really convenient because you never have a situation where you "forgot your lunchcard." Its also less expensive then issueing cards.

The neat thing about this application is that its a small, closed system. If the data being collected is not useful for law enforcement purposes, and its not networked, then there really isn't much to worry about here. The implications are different in other contexts. I would be more concerned about the fact that state is likely stamping the students fingerprints on to the back of their driver's licenses with 2d bar codes...

RE: Some question using student fingerprints for school meals